Communications of the ACM
Database Tracks Toxic Side Effects of Pharmaceuticals
North Carolina State University researchers say the database can be used to track information about the toxic effects of therapeutic drugs.
Credit: North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University researchers have updated an extensive toxicology database, which they say should make it easier to track information about the unintentional toxic effects of therapeutic drugs.
Over the course of a year, the team involved in the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) read and coded more than 88,000 scientific papers on therapeutic drugs and their involvement in adverse events such as hypertension, seizure, kidney failure, and liver disease. The structured format enables the information to be combined with other data to make novel predictions, such as which genes are key to connecting the drug and the adverse event.
"This could be useful in gene-testing patients to tailor the correct medicine or it could help design future therapeutics by alerting safety researchers to avoid those pathways and potential toxic outcomes," says the CTD's Allan Peter Davis.
The group also designed a new phenotype module. As a result, the system will allow investigators to connect phenotypes to diseases, which may enable scientists to prevent how chemicals cause toxicity.
From NCSU News
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